1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device provided with a file storage (auxiliary storage unit) and, particularly, to an electronic device in which two or more file accesses to the file storage made conflict with each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the case where two or more file access requests from applications to the same storage means made conflict with each other in an existing file system provided by an operating system, the access operations with respect to the storage means are processed in a time-division manner in general. FIG. 8 shows a file access operation state in a file system in the case where two or more file access requests from applications made conflict with each other. Although FIG. 8 shows a portion in which access requests conflict with each other as simultaneous access operations, time-division control is carried out actually.
In this case, two or more file access requests are apparently processed in parallel, which is favorable to a multiple application environment. However, in the parallel processing, the file access speed may decrease and the expected performance may not be attained.
In the case where an image forming apparatus has the configuration as described above, for a file access request requiring real-time processing, such as one relating to a print job, it is preferable to process the request under guaranteeing certain level of bandwidth (referred to as bandwidth guarantee). Further, there may be a case where it is necessary to process a file access request that does not require real-time processing, such as one relating to a setting value change, simultaneously with the file access request requiring real-time processing. The bandwidth for file access refers to the amount of accesses (transfer data amount) to a storage per unit time and is represented as, e.g., 1.5 Gbps.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-104212 discloses a file system in which in the case where two or more file access requests conflict with each other, a file access request having a higher priority level is preferentially processed to thereby guarantee its bandwidth while a file access request having a lower priority level is processed simultaneously.